Hello All,

Today's Artemis I launch attempt was scrubbed (hydrogen leaked again; no new date & time have been released yet). But at the PSCA (Pacific Spaceport Complex - Alaska) on Kodiak island, ABL Space Systems' first RS1 satellite launch vehicle is being prepared for launch on or about September 10 (see: https://everydayastronaut.com/maiden-flight-rs1/ [on "Everyday Astronaut's" website: https://everydayastronaut.com/ ]). Also:

Whenever Artemis I is launched--hopefully successfully--the solar sail-propelled NEA Scout (Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_Asteroid_Scout and https://spacenews.com/cubesats-to-h...s-on-artemis-1/ ) CubeProbe will be deployed from an adapter ring on the SLS (Space Launch System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System ) upper stage as it passes by the Moon about 37 days after launch. After sail deployment, NEA Scout will begin its sunlight-propelled journey to the asteroid 2020 GE (see: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-...rtemis-i-launch ). Since solar sails use no fuel for propulsion, NEA Scout can also visit other celestial bodies, for as long as its electronics (and its cold-gas [nitrogen] attitude control thrusters' propellant supply [the thrusters won't be needed often]) last, plus:

A total of ten 6U CubeSat-type spacecraft (six 1U module-size, that is; each 1U module is a 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm cube weighing about one kilogram) are affixed to the SLS upper stage's adapter ring, and they will be deployed in deep space at various points during the mission. Among this 'mini-armada' (shades of the 1986 "Halley Armada") are also Lunar IceCube (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_IceCube [the entire list--with their own article links--of the ten "hitch-hiker" spacecraft is *here*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_IceCube ]), an ion drive-propelled CubeProbe Moon orbiter for seeking water ice in the lunar surface (including in the permanently-dark craters in the Moon's polar regions), and a JAXA (Japan's space agency) "semi-hard Moon lander," called OMOTENASHI (see: https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/omotenashi/index.html ), which is likely the smallest-ever lunar landing spacecraft! (JPL's Ranger Block II spacecraft's retrorocket-equipped, spherical hard-landing seismometer capsules [see: https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/ranger_bl2.htm ] may have been smaller, but none of them landed slowly enough to continue functioning; Rangers 3 and 5 missed the Moon and are in solar orbits, and Ranger 4--whose program timer never activated after the spacecraft separated from its Atlas-Agena B launch vehicle's upper stage--impacted on the lunar farside.) As well:

On or about September 26, the ion drive-propelled DART spacecraft (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubl...edirection_Test ) will slam into Dimorphos, the smaller component of the binary asteroid Didymos, as the Italian-built, CubeSat-type LICIACube spacecraft--which is riding as a "hitch-hiker" payload aboard the DART spacecraft at the moment--takes instrument and sensor readings of the impact, and captures images of it. The DART--Double Asteroid Redirection Test--is a Planetary Defense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance [this article covers all of the methods, with animations as well as text; it's an excellent primer on the subject, which can also facilitate easier asteroid mining]) method test, and:

The ion drive-propelled DART spacecraft is a non-nuclear kinetic impactor, and Didymos was selected primarily because its orbit is too far from the Earth's orbit to be accidentally directed into an Earth-intersecting solar orbit, even if DART were to hit Dimorphos in the worst possible, off-CM (Center of Mass) location in the binary system (at the worst time--and point in Dimorphos's orbit around the system's Center of Mass). Hitting this binary asteroid will also provide some celestial mechanics computational and navigational experience that can also be applied to the "Gravity tractor" and "Ion beam shepherd" asteroid--and in some cases, comet--deflection methods.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR